Des relations comme support de méthodes de recherche participatives : polylogue, cartographie et décolonisation

This article presents a reflection on decolonial approaches in the social sciences, based on a participatory mapping process with urban Indigenous youth (Montreal, Quebec, Canada). Engaging in meaningful research with urban indigenous communities involves addressing two main issues. First, the coloniality of urban space, a site of dispossession, exclusion and invisibilization of Indigenous Peoples, both materially and in terms of representations. Secondly, the hierarchy of knowledge and the implicit coloniality of research processes. The use of methods for the co-creation of knowledge, such as participatory mapping, offers decolonizing possibilities both for research processes and for the social spaces in which they unfold, and the actors who live in and construct these spaces. Based on the presentation and analysis of the implementation of a participatory mapping workshop, we discuss the deployment of a polylogue that enabled the creation of relationships between co-researchers. The main outcome of this workshop remains the implementation of a decolonial methodology that supports, to this day, a rich research process.